How prone to drop out is MiniDV?

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I'm recording a ton of footage for a friends band, but as they are cheap they aren't paying for the stock, I'm using my own.

At my college we have a degausser, which magnetically wipes the tapes ready to re-used again.

My question is, how much quality is going to be lost by degaussing the tapes and re-using them? Technically speaking, how bad is it re-using stock? I know it's not professional, but I'm recording a lot of footage and this isn't being sold.

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I'm recording a ton of footage for a friends band, but as they are cheap they aren't paying for the stock, I'm using my own.

At my college we have a degausser, which magnetically wipes the tapes ready to re-used again.

My question is, how much quality is going to be lost by degaussing the tapes and re-using them? Technically speaking, how bad is it re-using stock? I know it's not professional, but I'm recording a lot of footage and this isn't being sold.

cheers.

Dan.

I can't give you a quantitative answer, but we have a policy of never re-using tapes, because we've found that even on the second use the chance of dropout seems to increase dramatically.

That said, there are some stocks which will almost always drop out when brand new (not naming names, Sony), so I'm sure there are others that are more robust on re-use.

Really, though, tape is one of the cheapest elements on a production, so do everything in your power not to cheap out on it.

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I generally do not reuse tapes simply because if something happens, like harddrive failure or accidental deletion of your media on your computer, you no longer have the footage anywhere and you are SOL. If you do want to reuse the tape though, you really don't need to degauss it. You should be able to just rewind and tape over it without considerable quality loss (if your not doing it excessively).

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But I was just wondering if there are any quantitive test results out there, I mean, we all avoid re-using tapes but, I wonder how bad it actually is technically. I've personally never experienced any problems, only ever problems from other factors like treating them badly etc. but I'm not looking into each any every pixel to see that everything is perfect.

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You should be fine as long as you keep the heads clean, and stick with the same brand of tape. (Dropouts and clogged heads are most likely to occur when you switch tapes that use different backing formulations. For some reason, there can be a chemical interaction that does a number on the tape heads.) I don't recall which brands use which backing types, but I'm sure such information is available.

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as a rule I don't reuse DV tapes. You're usually ok with Beta or the like as the 1/2" tape is much more substantial. In short to save yourself any trouble and bite the bullet and go out buy fresh tapes. Your peace of mind should be worth a couple bucks! :D

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I second not re-using tape. How much is a "ton of footage"? How much do you see yourself recording? Are we talking 2 hours or 50 hours? If it's a low number, maybe just bite the bullet and buy new stock on your own dime. Here in the US, there are places you can get the middle grade of Panasonic tape (ends with "PQ") for $3 (don't know what that is in pounds, sorry) per tape. If it's a lot of tapes you think you'll be needing, then different story, I guess. I would press for them to pay for tape stock. It's the least they could do, considering you're donating your time, skill, and possibly expensive gear. What it comes down to is that if you're volunteering to do the gig at all, even for no pay, you want to do your best, which would definitely include not using already-recorded tape stock. If you have to do it anyway, tell 'em, "you're cheap, so if this comes out like ass, you got what you paid for."

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To be honest I'm not shooting enough to be worried too much about the cost (that first line was a bit ott), I was just wondering if there was actually any conclusive evidence that re-using digital tapes decreases the quality in anyway, or if it's just one big cliche.

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To be honest I'm not shooting enough to be worried too much about the cost (that first line was a bit ott), I was just wondering if there was actually any conclusive evidence that re-using digital tapes decreases the quality in anyway, or if it's just one big cliche.

A lot of the tape manufacturers claim it is safe to use tapes ten times. As others have said, I would never re-use a tape on important work. Where we are just looking at possibilities, or something that might be irritating to replace the footage but not costly or impossible I have used tapes for two or three times. I have never had any problems.

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A lot of the tape manufacturers claim it is safe to use tapes ten times. As others have said, I would never re-use a tape on important work. Where we are just looking at possibilities, or something that might be irritating to replace the footage but not costly or impossible I have used tapes for two or three times. I have never had any problems.

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Well maybe this will help as I have reused tapes. I'm not exactly shooting anything of importance or for money so I figure why not. I will say however that the tapes were new and not used by god knows how many other students. I'd say buy a few, use them, get the footage to a hard drive and use them again. I have had no problem with drop out from mini DV so far and I know one tape has been used about 5 times. I'd say it mostly depends on the age of the tape. Have you ever tried to play a 25 year old VHS tape? AHHH!